Tigers at home, cats away: 1990’s.
Tigers at home, cougars away: 2000’s
Cats at home, Cats away: 2010’s
We need a new Team India
Yes, I see that you are struggling with the cat family, but essentially all I am talking about is the varying power of the Indian Cricket Team from time to time. Azharuddin lead a formidable Indian side that could barely perform to its expectations on foreign soil. Sachin skippered the side for a little while in between when Saurav Ganguly took over the reins. He revolutionized the way Indians played cricket and huffed and puffed and dragged the team and left it at a point where the team was considered mighty, home and away. Dhoni carried the legacy quite well until his luck ran into a roadblock in 2012. 2012 was still fresh with memories from April, 2011 when Dhoni’s boys clinched the World Cup.
2012 can be rightly nicknamed as Annus Horribilis for the team as they didn’t seem like World Champions at all. We were beaten black and blue by the English, “at home” where we supposed to be Tigers. Some of the senior pundits also claimed that the English were still inept when it came to the slow, turning ball. But, they forgot that the World’s best spinner currently was in their outfit. He went by the name Graeme Swann.
And, they were also taught that more than Gambhir, his opening counterpart, Alistair Cook could play spin better. Cook led his side from the front with match-winning knocks that sent the Indian bowlers on a leather hunt. And, what does our beloved captain do? Blame the pitch and its curator. Gone are those days when curators were asked to prepare spinning dusty pitch that will start cracking early on the third day and the spinners will run through the batting line-up in the opponent’s second innings and our players will start partying by lunch on the fifth day.
No, people have started adapting to situations. The non-sub continental teams have developed tweakers just to bolster their attack when they fly here. England has Graeme Swann, New Zealand have always boasted Daniel Vettori, South Africa have had Imran Tahir and Robin Peterson bowling in tandem in a considerably long run, West Indies have Sunil Narine. But for the exception of Australia all other teams have at least one spinner to whole-heartedly depend upon to aid them on sub continental pitches. So, it cannot be said we can win at home with only a good spin attack.
We have failed in Australia, we have miserably failed in the subcontinent. We failed in the World T20. All that is left of us is to be stripped of the World Champions tag, which we are definitely not worth of. Indian cricket needs to go through big changes.
We need quality paceman like Bhuvneshwar Kumar who has showed promise in the recently concluded Pakistan series. We need batsmen who can play the sheet-anchor role. We need a pinch-hitter who can replace Sehwag – who looks really out of sorts. We need a new Team India.
Tags: Cricket, India, Team India, Tigers
